this morning. Let's pray. Lord, we know a little something
of our own neediness. There speaks to You right now
a needy sinner, a needy preacher. I need Your grace. I need Your
mercy. I need the very presence of the
Spirit of God to enable me to deliver the message that I believe
you have laid upon my heart. And Lord, help me to speak to
these people indeed from my heart, to speak with clarity, to speak
with simplicity, and to speak only the very truth of God. And I ask for these who sit before
me and those who are joining us by way of the live stream,
Lord, would you likewise help them Give to all a hearing ear the
hearing ear of faith to embrace the Word of the Lord. Give to
all of us a humble spirit indeed to bow before You and to worship. And Lord, give the spirit of
understanding and of worship as we consider the very priesthood
of the Old Testament. Lord, we do so with thanksgiving
for that priesthood of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only
Mediator, the only Great High Priest we have, One who deals,
Father, with You. for us. And that One who is also your
prophet, who speaks to us from you. May this service be honoring,
Lord, to you. May you receive all the glory,
all the attention, May our souls make our boasts in the Lord,
seeing that you are good, and you are kind, and you are merciful
to reveal yourself to unworthy sinners like ourselves. Speak
to each of our hearts, we ask, and may the sweet and precious
name of our Lord Jesus, who is our Savior, our Advocate, our
eternal surety, that One who shed His blood to redeem us. May He be the focus of the message,
and may all of us leave here today believing in Him, resting
in Him, and having an understanding of the necessity of being found
in Christ Jesus and in His righteousness. So, blessed today as the Word
goes forth, we ask these sayings for our Savior's sake. Amen. Alright, we're in Exodus chapter
28. this morning, and here we read
of the garments that Aaron, as the high priest, must wear, his
official garments. But we also read of the garments
that his four sons, who are the priests, the garments that they
must wear as they minister to the people on the behalf of God. Let me begin reading again at
verse 1, and I say again because I've read these verses to you
before. But they will be with a different emphasis this morning. God tells Moses in chapter 28
verse 1, and, Take thou unto thee Aaron thy brother and his
sons with you. take them from among the children
of Israel, that he may minister unto me in the priest's office,
even Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar, Aaron's
sons. And thou shalt make holy garments
for Aaron thy brother." And I want you to take note of these next
few words. Here's the title of the message.
Here it says, Glory and for Beauty. These garments, the Lord says,
that Aaron will wear, and then Aaron's boys, his sons will wear. They're for this reason, they're
to wear them for glory and for beauty. And thou shalt speak
unto all that are wise hearted, whom I have filled with the spirit
of wisdom, that they may make Aaron's garments to consecrate
him, that he may minister unto me in the priest's office. Now
these are the garments that they shall make, and these are Aaron's
very special garments. These are the garments which
they shall make, a breastplate, and an ephod, and a robe, and
a broidered coat, a mitre, and a girdle, or a sash. And they
shall make holy garments for Aaron thy brother and his sons,
that he may minister unto me in the priest's office. And they
shall take gold, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine
linen. Now these specific garments that
are mentioned here in the fourth verse are for Aaron. He is, after all, He's going
to be the High Priest of Israel. Now, if you will, go over toward
the end of the chapter, and I'll begin reading at verse number
40. And for Aaron's sons, thou shalt
make coats, thou shalt make for them girdles, and bonnets shalt
thou make them, And here are these very same words for glory
and for beauty. So what we have here, the garments
that Aaron are to wear as the high priest of Israel, they were
made for him for glory and for beauty. And then the Lord addresses
the garments that Aaron's sons will wear as they minister in
the tabernacle, and he says the same things. They shall be made
for glory and for beauty. These are the garments that God
has designed for the priesthood for both the high priests and
Aaron's sons, the priests. But I want you to notice this.
And I want you to go over, first of all, go to chapter 39. Chapter
39. I want you to notice that those
garments that were made for the sons of Aaron were also to be
worn by Aaron one day a year. In other words, Aaron had two
sets of clothing. He had the whole high priestly
outfit. And whenever he ministered on
the behalf of the people in the tabernacle, he was to wear all
of that clothing that God ordained for him to wear. But one day of the year, he wasn't
to wear those. One day of the year, he was to
dress just as the sons dressed with the priest's clothing. Let
me begin reading here in chapter 39 of Exodus. I trust you're
there. And look at verse 27. and they shall make coats of
fine linen, of woven work for Aaron and his sons, and a miter
of fine linen, and goodly bonnets of fine linen, and linen britches
of the fine twine linen, and a girdle of fine twine linen,
and blue, and purple, and scarlet of needlework, as the Lord commanded
Moses. So they make all of this. And
then drop down to verse 32. Thus was all the work of the
tabernacle and of the tent of the congregation finished. This is the end of the making
of the tabernacle. And here's when you say, Jim,
what's the point you're driving at? Nothing was finished until
there was the priesthood with their garments. Because these
were the men who would minister in the tabernacle on the behalf
of the children of Israel. And it is only after they had
these garments made for them, Aaron's high priestly garments,
which he wore any time he went into the holy place to minister
on the behalf of Israel, as well as the garments for his sons,
garments which he would wear himself one day of the year,
that being the Day of Atonement. It is only after these garments
are set forth and God describes them to Moses, they're to be
made in this way. It is only after those were made
that then we have the tabernacle being finished. And so here's
what we wanna take away from that. There was no finishing
of the tabernacle until there was a person, or in this case,
five people, who were ordained to minister unto the Lord on
the behalf of the people, and to minister to the people on
the behalf of the Lord. They had to have, Israel had
to have a representative, and of course the chief representative
of Israel was the great high priest, or the high priest I
should say, that is Aaron. The Israelites themselves, they
could only come so far toward worshiping God, but they couldn't
enter into the holy place, and certainly they couldn't enter
into the holy of holies. They had to have a legal, divinely
appointed representative or mediator, that's a good word here, to speak
to God and to deal with God on their behalf. While the Israelites,
they couldn't even offer their sacrifices to God. They brought
the animals. They would put their hands upon
the head of the animals and they would confess all their sins.
And there was, in a symbolic way, a transference of guilt,
not in a real way. But what was happening then was
a picture of that which would happen at the cross of Calvary. When all of the sins of all of
God's true Israel were indeed imputed to, reckoned to, transferred
to our Lord Jesus Christ. And He, as our representative,
we can't do business with God. God's consuming fire. See, the
Israelites, they couldn't go into the holy place. God killed
them. They'd be struck with fire. The Bible says our God's a consuming
fire. Well, then who's going to deal
with God on the behalf of sinful Israel? And who's going to deal
with God on behalf of us? We're sinful people. And I'm
sure that the half has not been told concerning our depravity
and our sinfulness. But we're all of such a nature
that we cannot draw near unto God, for God is a consuming fire. He will destroy us. We must therefore
have one who will step in between God and us, and deal with God
on our behalf, and deal with us on God's behalf. That's the
great high priest, our Lord Jesus Christ. And he is eminently qualified. You see, learn this. The garments
that Aaron wore every day of the year except for the Day of
Atonement, those garments made him to be, or they were for him,
as garments of glory and beauty because he was not glorious and
he was not beautiful. It was the garments that were
designated for him that then made him to appear glorious and
beautiful. but our Lord Jesus, He is Himself
all glorious and beautiful Himself." Aaron didn't have that. You see,
Aaron was just a sinful man. We behold the sovereign grace
of God in separating Aaron from the rest of Israel. He's of the
tribe of Levi. God said, this is my man here.
I'll make him to be a high priest. But he's still a sinner. He's
still a sinner. He has no glory about him. He has no beauty about him. That's
the reason it says back over here in our text in chapter 28,
you make these holy garments for Aaron thy brother for glory. And for beauty, he didn't have
either one. There's no glory to Aaron any
more than there's any glory to you. And glory has the idea of an honor, dignity, that's a good
word here. He had no dignity in and of Himself. He had no honor in and of Himself. He's a fallen Son of Adam. And you don't have any glory,
you don't have anything special about you, anything that sets
you above others. The word glory means dignified. Whereas the word beauty means
rank or excellence. Aaron didn't have any glory,
he didn't have any honor, he didn't have any dignity, and
he didn't have any glory. He didn't have any greatness.
He's just like all other men. And the same is true of all of
us. Those of us who are the children of God, we're the priests of
God, right? The Scripture says that. We're
priests. But we have no inherent glory or beauty. And if we are to have any glory
and beauty, one who is all-glorious Himself, One who is all-beautiful
Himself, who has a rank above all other men, He must give us
glory and beauty, our Lord Jesus Christ. Consider Aaron. Let's consider
Aaron first, and I'll spend the bulk of my time this morning
dealing with Aaron, and then we'll talk about his sons. Aaron
was chosen by the Lord to be the high priest of Israel. He's the one who would deal in
things pertaining to God. He was their mediator. And in that sense, his sons also
pictured our Lord Jesus, for they were mediators. They were
mediators. They offered to God the sacrifices
of the people. The people couldn't offer them.
You couldn't put your sacrifice up on the brazen altar. You couldn't
go up and wash in the laver. Certainly on the Day of Atonement,
you couldn't go into the Holy of Holies. and sprinkle the mercy
seat with blood. Aaron was the high priest and
his sons were the priests. And they stood between the people
and God. Here's what, if God would help
me to impress this upon your heart, the spirit of God must
impress it upon your heart, I know that. But you've got to have
somebody, I've got to have somebody who will deal with a holy God on my behalf. Somebody who will
speak to God for me. Somebody who will labor for God
in a perfect way for me. and I must have one who will
offer the sacrifice of all sacrifices that will once and forever put
away all of my sins. That's who I need. That's who
you need. That's our great high priest. That's one far greater than Aaron. You see, with Aaron, though God
chose him to be the high priest of Israel and with his sons,
though God chose those four men to be the priests of Israel,
before they could offer a sacrifice for anybody else, they'd offer
a sacrifice for themselves because they were sinful men representing
sinful nation. So Aaron, on the Day of Atonement,
when he didn't wear his sparkling garments of the high priest,
he dressed like the other priests, all in white. And first of all, he had to offer
to God a sacrifice for his own sins. And only then could he
offer a sacrifice for others. Let me show you that. Look at
Hebrews chapter seven. If you would, Hebrews chapter
seven. Hebrews chapter seven, and look
at verse 25. Hebrews chapter seven, verse
25. Well, it's kind of hard to know
exact where to, look at verse 23. And they truly were many
priests because they were not suffered to continue by reason
of death, they died. The death of one priest meant
that they had to have somebody take his place. But this man, this man who is The all-glorious
Son of God. This man, because he continued
forever. You say, well, he died. Yes,
he did die. But he is raised again. He was
raised again because our justification had been sealed by His blood.
We're justified by grace in old eternity. We're justified at
the cross of Calvary by the bloody death of the Lord Jesus Christ
that sealed the covenant and because He had already obtained
redemption for us and because He justified us, He was raised
from the dead. He continues forever. He ever
lives to make intercession for us, Romans 8 says. It says, but
this man, man's in italics, but it's to be understood. He's speaking
of this Jesus who has made the surety of a better covenant.
But this man, because he continues forever, hath an unchangeable
priesthood. You see, the priesthood of Israel,
it changed quite often. Every time there was the death
of a priest. But our Lord Jesus, He maintains
His priesthood. But look at verse 25, Wherefore
He is able also to save them to the uttermost, that means
perfectly and completely, for all time and for eternity. He
is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto
God by Him." Those are really key words. You can't come any
other way. Well, preacher, what about people
who don't believe the Lord Jesus Christ, but they talk about they
believe God? They can't come to God any other
way except by Him. So, well, you're leaving out
a bunch of people. I'm not leaving out anybody.
God leads them out. This is the Lord. This is a divine
Word from the Lord. Those that come unto God by Him,
not by the church, not by the Pope, not by works, not by baptism,
not by the Lord's Supper, by Him. He said Himself, I am the way,
the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by Me. That's what He said. Seeing ye ever liveth to make
intercession for them. Look at verse 26. For such an
high priest became us. He's suitable to us. This is
just the kind of high priest we need. We don't need a high
priest like Aaron, because everything he did was of a symbolic nature,
a typical nature. But our Lord Jesus, He's perfectly
suitable to us. Well, how is He? Well, He's holy. He's harmless. He's undefiled. He's separate from sinners. He's
made higher than the heavens. Now watch verse 27. Who needeth
not daily as those high priests to offer up sacrifice first for
his own sins. That's the first thing Aaron
had to do. He had to offer sacrifice for his own sins. and then for the peoples. But of our Lord Jesus, this He
did once. He died once. He offered one
sacrifice for sins forever to God. One time. One time. When He offered up Himself. Who
offered Him up? He said, I offer up Myself. He
is the offering offered to God and He offered Himself. And then He says, for the law
maketh man high priests which have infirmity. Bless his heart,
Aaron. He had infirmity. You wait till
we get to the next message. I won't deal with it next Lord's
Day, but the next Lord's Day. He had infirmity. He is a sinful
man. And He's going to show us that.
Actually, I should take that back. The Spirit of God is going
to show us that. That He's just a sinful man.
Don't worship Aaron. Don't worship a preacher. I know we're to esteem the servants
of God. Esteem them highly for their
work's sake. But don't you worship any man. I put my britches on every morning
just like you do. And I drink iniquity-like water
just like you do. And my thoughts are not holy
and without blemish just like yours are not. Worship Him who is perfect in
every way. We have infirmities. See, here's
the problem with following a man. If you just follow a man, well,
when he dies, your religion dies. Or when he does something that
brings dishonor to the name of God, then you say, well, there's
nothing to this. Oh, there is something to this.
There's just nothing to that man you've been following. You see, you got the wrong idea.
Preachers are people. We're sinful men like everybody
else. I'm a sinner seeking salvation
in Christ Jesus. I'm still a mercy beggar. I come
to the Lord every day. I say, Lord, show me mercy for
Christ's sake. Forgive me. Forgive me. Look on me in the righteousness
of the beauties of your own Son. I'm as vile as anybody in here. Because
none of us are good, there's none good, no, not one. That's
what the Scripture says. The Scripture says there's not
a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not. There's
not a justified man, there's not a righteous man in this world
who does good and sins not. Well, that seems like you're
saying it wrong. A righteous man, but he can't
do good? We're righteous in Christ Jesus. Who of God has made unto us wisdom
and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, but as far as
we're concerned, unclean, unclean. That's all of us. We worship God, but we sure have
the infirmities, don't we? Yeah, we do, and we acknowledge
that. But the word of the oath which
was since the law maketh the son who has consecrated forevermore. Let's talk about Aaron. What
were his garments? Well, he wore a coat. It wasn't
a coat like we think of. This is an inner garment, an
undergarment, if you please. It's described in Exodus 24,
excuse me, 28 in verse four, and in verse 39. In Exodus chapter
39, verse 27, it's called an embroidered coat of fine linen
of woven work. This beautiful, fine linen represents
righteousness and purity. It's worn next to the body, and
it speaks of our Lord's, His true purity and righteousness. There was no fault in Him. The Father examined His life
from His birth to His death. And then an ungodly man, an ungodly
ruler, Pilate, he spoke for everybody. I find no fault in this man.
There wasn't any fault in him. That's the code. That's the code. And then there was the robe.
The robe, the scripture says, was worn over the white linen
coat and was all blue. It was blue in color and it was,
the scripture says, curiously wrought. It was woven of gold, that speaks
of divinity, and blue, that speaks of the fact that he's from heaven. And purple, he is the king, he's
the royal one. And scarlet, he's the one who
shed his blood. Curiously wrought. That's what
the scripture says about his robe. It's curiously wrought.
And I think there of his incarnation. Curiously wrought. So much so that the angel, the
messenger from God said to Mary, that holy thing formed in you,
curiously wrought. This robe of blue was worn by
the high priest, and by the high priest only. And it represented
something belonging to the Lord Jesus, which cannot be put upon
His people. I know He gives us a lot. He gives us all that we need. But this blue robe speaks of
something that He cannot impart to anybody else. Deity. Deity. I think it was last year,
year before last, it was a sign on the Catholic church down here.
Jesus became all that we are so that we may become all that
He is. That's not right. He's God. Do we become God? Do we become
little gods? Oh no. I know we have the life
of God in the soul, But we're not deities. We never will be
deities. We never will be gods. Our Lord Jesus is the everlasting
God. And we worship Him as gods. If
we became gods, then people could worship us, I suppose. But we
don't become gods. No. And this robe speaks to us
of His deity. Attached to the skirt of the
robe were golden bells and pomegranates. The golden bells made a joyful
sound. And that's the Gospel. We have
heard the joyful sound. Jesus saves. Jesus saves. How
does He do that? How does God save us? How does Jesus save us? By His
sacrifice upon the cross of Calvary. This is the answer to the question
of all questions. How can God be just and justify
the ungodly? The golden bells ringing. And those golden bells as Aaron worked
about the tabernacle. Those golden bells gave a beautiful,
joyful sound to the Israelite. As they heard those bells ringing,
they said to one another, you hear that? You hear that? Isn't that a lovely sound? There's
one representing us to God. There's one burning incense to
God, making intercession for us. There's one trimming the
lamps, keeping the Spirit of God upon us. There's one there
at the table of showbread, who speaks of the bread of life. Oh, the joyful sound of the bells. And then the pomegranates that
speaks of fruitfulness. and you cut a pomegranate in
half, you open it up, it's full of seeds. Because our Lord Jesus,
oh, He gives birth to an infinite number of people. And all of
those seeds are floating in red juice, speaking of His blood. Blood redemption. And then there's the ephod. This
part of the priestly attire was worn above the robe of blue,
kind of a vest, kind of think of a vest as far as the ephod
was concerned, like a short coat with no sleeves. Sometimes in Michigan I'd wear
a suit with a vest and one of the men in the congregation was
from England, he'd say, that's a short coat. Well, this ephod
was like a short coat. Had no sleeves, came to the waist. Had two parts, front and the
back. Joined at the top with clasps
of gold. And in those clasps of gold,
there was on one side an onyx stone, and on the other side
another onyx stone. And on each of those stones were
engraved six tribes of Israel on this one, six tribes of Israel
on this one. When Aaron was ministering before
God in the high priestly office, he bore the tribes of Israel. He bore all the people upon his
shoulders, which pictures this. Our Lord Jesus bears us upon
His mighty shoulders. He carries us. If you have an
opportunity to read Luke chapter 15 this afternoon, it begins
with the shepherd who finds the lost sheep and he picks it up.
Where does he put it? Up on his shoulders. And I tell
you, our Lord Jesus, He bears all of His people upon His mighty
shoulders. You can't fall because you're upheld by the
mighty Son of God. And then, there was the girdle. It was connected with ephod,
made of the same materials. Kind of think of a sash around
his waist. The girdle speaks of one who
serves. The Lord Jesus said to His disciples,
the Son of Man has come not to be ministered to, but to minister. He said, I didn't come for you
to serve me. I came to serve you. I came to do something for
you. In this matter of salvation, man always wants to do something,
doesn't he? Got to do something. Well, tell
me what I've got to do. I'd rather tell you about what's
been done. The Savior has finished the work
of redemption. He served us. And Isaiah says
in Isaiah 11.5, righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins,
and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. And then there's the
breastplate. It was not to be loosed from
the ephod. It's typical of something that
belongs to Christ our mediator. On that ephod were twelve stones. They were sewn in four rows. The twelve tribes of Israel.
You see, our Lord not only carries us upon His shoulders, He bears
us upon His heart. And then there's the mitre. That's
the headpiece of the high priest. And he was made of fine white
linen. It wasn't an elaborate headpiece
such as the Pope wears. What he wears is in the shape
of a fish head. Like Dagon. Dagon's head in the
book of 1 Samuel. The shape of a fish head. Our
Lord Jesus didn't wear that. He, as our great high priest,
wears a miter, fine white linen, which had upon the front of it,
in pure gold, these words, Holiness to the Lord. Holiness to the
Lord. You can be sure of this, whatever
God does, It will be done according to holiness. That's true of all
of His works. God has a holy love and He has
a holy hatred. He is holy in all of His ways. It's a humbling truth, but one
full of comfort nevertheless. He wears this. The Scripture
says Aaron would wear it that he might bear the iniquity of
holy things. You know, we're involved in a
holy service this morning. That is, we're trying to worship
God. But there's iniquity in our holy
things. But our Lord Jesus bore the iniquity
of our holy things. He bore them away at the cross
too. So there's the garments of Aaron. And then there's the garments
of his sons, which really we don't need to go into because
they were the garments of fine linen, white. But what I would have you to
remember is on that day of atonement, Aaron laid aside all those garments
I just talked about, and he put on the garments of his sons,
the priests. In other words, he laid aside
those beautiful, glorious garments. And now he appears to be as a
simple priest. Do you not see there the incarnation
of our Lord Jesus? As He, as it were, laid His glory
aside and came down here, but all through His life, a life
lived of perfection according to righteousness. And as that man Christ Jesus,
He had glory. In fact, in his high priestly
prayer in John 17, he said this, and let me just read it to you. You don't need to take time to
get there. Chapter 17. He says to the Father,
And now, O Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self, with
the glory which I had with Thee before the world was. He had
an indescribable honor before He ever came. And now as the
God-man, being the legal representative of His people, who lived for
us and who's going to die for us, who arose for us, who ascended
and intercedes for us, He says to the Father, glorify Thou me
with the same glory, though I'm the man, Christ Jesus. Glorify
this man. And the Father said, I have glorified
you. He said this in John 12. I have
glorified you. I have glorified you. And then our Lord had a beauty.
Glory and beauty. High rank and excellence. That's His. That's His. And He was made like unto His
brethren, yet without sin, clad in garments of a priest, as He
faithfully obeyed God. And then, in that act of obedience,
He laid down His life for us to put away all of our sins.
And then He took that life again. This is indeed our Savior. full of glory and full of beauty. Let's sing one stanza of our
closing song.